INXS Anniversary Flashback: Their 7 Best Album Tracks
Celebrating the hits that weren’t, 39 years after the band’s debut.
On September 1, 1979, the Australian band INXS performed its first-ever concert at the Ocean Beach Hotel in Umina, a suburb on the Central Coast of New South Wales. Within four years, the sextet led by Michael Hutchence — whose sexy strut and swagger was one part Mick Jagger, one part Marc Bolan, and a whole lot of Jim Morrison — would be well on its way to global glory.
I’ve been an INXS fan since that Sunday morning in spring 1983 when I heard “The One Thing,” the debut single from the group’s third album, Shabooh Shoobah, for the first time. It was the day after my birthday, and “The One Thing” was kicking off Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 radio countdown, entering Billboard’s hit list at number 40 (for the Hot 100 week ending May 14), making it INXS’s U.S. breakthrough.
(Fun fact: “The One Thing” was sandwiched between two other rising hits: Elton John’s “I’m Still Standing” at 39 and Kajagoogoo’s “Too Shy” at 41. Check out that week’s chart action here.)
It wasn’t until I was studying at the University of Florida eight years later that I truly appreciated INXS as so much more than a pretty face and five other guys. My then-roommate Stephanie, my BFF Maureen, and…
